@stormanimagus Posts should, in theory, contain substantive content and not what is essentially flamebait. Care to explain what effect this will have against Ravager Shops, what decks can use it effectively, what cards they will cut to include it, and why you think it will reduce Ravager Shops win percentage from 59% to 50% and metagame share from ~30% to ~20%?

@protoaddct Workshop is a far more restricted Black Lotus in terms of what it can cast. Players fail to acknowledge the fact that Shops is playing with fully 1/6th of the possible colors that the game has to offer. This restriction, in my opinion, more than accounts for the mana boost. Your argument is a tired one that doesn't compare one entirely busted mana source with another correctly at all.

Tolarian academy is restricted. Closer parallel? This shuts it down, is it safe to come off the unrestricted list like shops is? It also only provides mana for a small fraction of the available card pool.

I think Mana Reflection works slightly differently than you say, @gkraigher. From the release notes:

If multiple replacement effects would modify what mana an ability you control produces, choose one to apply. After that, determine if any others are applicable. A replacement effect can't apply to the same event more than once this way.

So if you tap a land that would normally produce one mana, you would apply Mana Reflection first as it's the only applicable replacement effect initially. You then check and see that Damping Sphere is now applicable, so the mana is reduced to C.

If you tap a land that would normally produce two mana, you have two possible replacement effects to choose from initially, and then the second is applied. You can either apply Mana Reflection first and end up with C after Damping Sphere, or apply Damping Sphere first and end up with CC after Mana Reflection.

That's my take on it. Maybe a judge can chime in? It kinda looks like this thread is going to devolve into another B&R spat, but I hope we get a ruling before this gets buried.

Tolarian academy is restricted. Closer parallel? This shuts it down, is it safe to come off the unrestricted list like shops is? It also only provides mana for a small fraction of the available card pool.

don't be a moron. of course tolarian academy needs to stay restricted. It can create absurd amounts of the most used color of mana in Vintage for every deck that runs blue and broken spells. I'm not going to engage any further in an argument that you consistently choose to rebut with hyperbolic unsupported comments. Just stop. Stop.

This feels pretty exciting for folks looking for new control tech, albeit situationally. I agree with above posts that say along with Eldrazi, this seems like a strong contender for BUG or hate bears type decks, but would it also go in a shell like Landstill, or similar Draw Go type strategies where you’d want to hose out workshop, xerox and storm all at once?

I guess where do you cut to bring this in is the eternal (heh) question, but I feel like if you’re playing man lands that don’t get punished by this it could be pretty swell.

Maybe it’s just nostalgia for a decent prison deck, but cards like this definitely scratch a particular itch!